Jewish Hellenist, and author of an epic poem in Greek hexameters on the history of Jerusalem. Alexander Polyhistor (c. 10 5-35 B.C.) quotes several passages of the poem, and is the source of the extracts in Eusebius ( Praeparatio evangelica, ix. 20, 24, 37). This is probably the Philo who is mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus ( Strom. i. 21, 141) and by Josephus ( Contra Apionem, i. 23), who calls him "the elder." See M. Philippson's work on the Jewish poets Ezechiel and Philo (Berlin, 1830).